A programming approach based on the concepts of data abstraction and inheritance is known. Unlike procedural programming techniques, object-oriented programming concentrates on what data objects comprise the problem and how they are manipulated, not on how something is accomplished. The approach is in particular applied for example in the fields of application coding using languages such as Java (Registered Trade Mark—“RTM”) or C++ or database structures.
Such data objects are collections of data and member functions that operate on that data, which together represent a logical entity in the system. In object-oriented programming, objects are grouped into classes that share common data definitions and member functions. Each object in the class is said to be an instance of the class. Object oriented approaches have been adapted to use in the modelling of complex systems. In visual composition, an instance of an object class consists of attributes, a data structure, and operational member functions. It can represent a person, place, thing, event, or concept. Each instance has the same properties, attributes, and member functions as other instances of the object class, though it has unique values assigned to its attributes. Systems modelled using such approaches include software projects themselves, and even the functions of businesses. Specialised languages for describing and handling such models such as Eclipse® have been devised, in addition to extensions of conventional object oriented programming languages.
Inside any Object Oriented system objects are interconnected by references to one another. For any given object there may be other objects that referencing it and others that are referenced by it. If a user creates a new object and wants to replace the original one with the newly created one, the problem is that it is then necessary to rebuild all the connections once again for the new object. The same problem appears in transformation engines or any such case that needs replacing objects.
Thus a user wishing to update an object is presented with the tasks of inserting the new object, moving the old object connections to the new object in order to re-establish valid links between objects so as to correctly realign them, based on personal memory, then deleting the old object. This is of course a major undertaking with an obvious cost in terms of operator time. There is also the danger of user error introducing faults and inconsistencies.